Category Archives: Generational Communication

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This past Wednesday, I had the honor to speak at the Missouri Community Action Network’s Strategic Communication training. Strategic Communications for nonprofits is a big interest here at The Rebecca Gordon Group.

Our discussion this week was focused on website development for nonprofits. Whether you work in a big or small shop your online location needs to build awareness, drive action and advance engagement. We borrowed pieces of Kivi Leroux Miller’s 2016 Nonprofit Trends Infographic in our presentation below. We love her nonprofit communications blog.

Over the past three months we have been working with Kids’ Harbor, Inc. a child advocacy center located in Central Missouri who works to help prevent, intervene and follow-up with children and families who are dealing with child abuse issues.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and in a area like the Lake of the Ozarks we have had to deploy not only traditional fundraising techniques but also low-tech and crowdsourcing options to raise money and awareness.

These tactics can be surprisingly effective.

Tactic 1: The GO BLUE! Campaign. What is that you say? The GO BLUE campaign was created seven years ago to allow people, businesses and communities to actively engage in child abuse prevention activities on their own terms.

The premise is simple, every Friday in April, you ask people to wear blue, light up local buildings blue or get great cities like St. Louis to make their fountain blue. (Do check to make sure that the Cubs are not in town before doing this one, we learned from experience:)

Tactic 2: Sell some blue t-shirts! People want to support your work and GO BLUE! Selling them the swag makes it simple. First, by having a t-shirt with the same logo, brand and message, you’re crowdsourcing your campaign. As is the case with Kids’ Harbor, local banks, grocery stores and retain outlets are selling shirts and letting their employees dress down on Fridays. What a great way to raise some awareness and dollars. Also, if you buy great t-shirts people will wear them year round. BONUS.

Tactic 3: The Small Stuff Counts Too! As nonprofits we love the big bucks, sponsorships and large donations but don’t overlook the power of the small stuff. Kids’ Harbor recruited over 20 businesses across their region who would be willing to partner during child abuse prevention month and put out a fundraising bucket. Little donations add up fast.

HubSpot has recently started a series on tips and tricks for Coin Canisters that I encourage you to check out here.

In this age of online fundraising and big capital campaigns (which we love here at the RGG) it is important to remember, sometimes the nickel and dimes add up and low-tech solutions can bag you big bucks!